Hello from deep midsummer, where the soft animal of my body has recovered enough to eat foods besides bread and cheese — cherries, nectarines, melons, tomatoes, and raspberries are featuring prominently — and I am finding pleasure in plunging that same body into the cold Puget Sound, and really any body of water I can find, on a regular basis. There’s something about being in the water that makes me feel extremely present, and like I am really experiencing summer, which this year has been very hot and humid for weeks at a time.
It’s been important for me to push myself out of the house and into the ocean, even when dear God I don’t want to, because being close to the ocean is one of the best things about Seattle, a city that I have not always felt I belonged, but that I have decided to stay in. I have been questioning where I want to live for years now — and with the current political situation in this country, not to mention cost of living, how can anyone blame me — but this constant, ceaseless questioning has made me unable to be fully present in my community, in my work, and in my life. It has made me unable to make decisions, start a new career, or repair my home, because what is the point if I’m not going to live here?
Like many people, I’ve been living in a real purgatory for the last 5 years. My family has changed, my work has changed, my office has changed, my relationship has changed, even my body has changed. I’ve experienced upheaval in almost every aspect of my life, and it’s also my nature to be restless and to want to move around. You can’t grow up having moved 10 times before age 20, and 17 more times before age 40 and not start to feel the thrum of restlessness after a few years in the same place. But I moved here so I could stop moving, if even temporarily. The earth sign in me needs stability. And New York — a city I chickened out of moving to in my late twenties, a city that I will forever have an inferiority complex about — will always be there, right? Right.
Seattle is not an especially exciting city and the food scene is dismal (sorry!!). It rains a lot and the sky is an oppressive low-hanging gray roof for at least three whole months of the year. I’m not what you would call outdoorsy. And yet…and yet. My neighbors know and love my dog and check in on me. My best friend is here as is her daughter, who I love as if she were my own. I have made new friends. I can count about a million gorgeous trees and flowers on my daily walks. The sky stays light until 11 in the summer. There are seasons. I swim in the ocean. I went to a lake.
I’m staying. And it’s ok.
Thanks for reading,
Antonia